Bob Collins
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
By Bob Collins
Bob Collins retired from Minnesota Public Radio in 2019 after 12 years of writing NewsCut and pointing out to complainants that posts weren’t news stories. A son of Massachusetts, he was a news editor 1992-1998, created the MPR News regional website in 1999, invented the popular Select A Candidate, started several blogs, and every day lamented that his Minnesota Fantasy Legislature project never caught on.
It’s a good thing that John Dwan, Henry Bryan, Harmon Cable, and J. Danley Budd had already made some money in various businesses around Two Harbors, Minn., right around the time they started thinking there was money in the ground on the North Shore. The four — a lawyer, a butcher, a doctor, a railroad baron — weren’t particularly good at all things mining. Read more →
The school chief in Shorewood, Wis., has pulled the plug on this year’s fall play at the local high school. The ‘N word” in ‘ To Kill a Mockingbird’ was too hot to handle, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. Read more →
We should be better. There are people who need help. Read more →
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
Racism can put you out of business in a hurry, just ask the owner of Scream Town, which issued a ‘zero tolerance policy for Somalis’ via Facebook after some sort of incident last weekend at the Halloween-themed venue. Read more →
A few days ago, Justin Gallegos, a junior at the University of Oregon, was finishing cross country practice, working on his dream of one day running a half marathon in under two hours. Read more →
A dispute in Wisconsin started in 2016 when furniture executive Scott Mullins trimmed trees in his yard to get a better view of Lake Michigan. Then, uninvited, he went into the yard of Kathe Lake and cut — ‘pruned,’ he says — 150 more. Read more →
Having listened to NPR coverage of Hurricane Michael this morning, it just wasn’t registering. “The city of Tallahassee, known for its extensive tree canopy, says ‘thousands of trees are down,’ causing widespread damage and blocked roads,” but I couldn’t figure out what the reporter was trying to convey. “Dozens of houses on the narrow strip Read more →
There was nothing happening in the sugar beet section of Minnesota on Wednesday. The yards at the sugar beet factory in Crookston were empty, the machines were silent. There were no trucks. Along the fields from Ada into Crookston, harvesters, combines, and trailers sit idled. It’s been raining and snowing and the harvest is on hold.
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Fox News is still providing online coverage of the rallies, but Politico claims the White House is concerned that the president is losing an important megaphone.
Congratulate someone today who has learned English as a second language. Their accomplishment is massive. Read more →
Curiously, the demographic that has increased the most, is also the demographic that has been most upset about the players’ protests for racial equity in America. Read more →
Here are the stories, topics, and guests you’ll hear today on MPR News. Read more →
This is a good day to bring back one of my favorite posts of recent years, particularly since we heard from Bobby Marko late last week that the documentary of the trip — The Arrowhead Traverse — is completed and will premiere at the Fresh Coast Film Festival in Marquette, Michigan later this month. Read more →